Clinical trial results have demonstrated that the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine is safe to be used in children aged five to 11 years. — AFP
Pfizer and BioNTech said on Sept 20 (2021) that clinical trial results showed their Covid-19 vaccine is safe and produces a robust immune response in children aged five to 11.
The vaccine would be administered at a lower dosage than for people over 12, they said.
“In participants five to 11 years of age, the vaccine was safe, well tolerated and showed robust neutralising antibody responses,” the companies said in a joint statement.
They plan to submit their data to regulatory bodies in the European Union, the United States and around the world “as soon as possible”.
Brown University School of Public Health dean and a leading Covid expert in the US Dr Ashish Jha called it the “good news” many parents had been waiting for.
If all goes well and approval follows, “my 9-year will get a shot by Halloween!” he tweeted.
The trial results are the first of their kind for children under 12, with a Moderna trial for six- to 11-year-olds still ongoing.
Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna jabs are already being administered to adolescents over 12 in several countries, as well as to adults around the globe.
Although children are considered less at risk for severe Covid-19, there are concerns that the highly contagious SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant could lead to more serious cases.
Inoculating children is also seen as key to keeping schools open and helping end the pandemic.
“We are eager to extend the protection afforded by the vaccine to this younger population,” said Pfizer chief executive officer Albert Bourla.
Kids in the five to 11 years age group received a two-dose regimen of 10mcg in the trial, compared with 30mcg for older age groups, the companies said.
The shots were given 21 days apart.
The 10mcg dose was “carefully selected as the preferred dose for safety, tolerability and immunogenicity” for that age group, the statement said.
The side effects were “generally comparable to those observed in participants 16 to 25 years of age”, it added.
Among the most commonly reported side effects in the past have been pain and swelling at the injection site, as well as headache, chills and fever.
The statement made no mention of the rare side effect of myocarditis – an inflammation of the heart muscle that has been linked to the vaccine, mostly among younger males.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine received full, formal approval in the US in August (2021), and has therefore been technically available to younger children if prescribed by a doctor in that country.
But US authorities have cautioned against doing this until the safety data was in.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a statement earlier this month (September 2021) that it would “carefully” review emergency authorisation requests for vaccines for under-12s, a process it expected to take “weeks, rather than months”.
Israel has already given special authorisation to vaccinate children aged five to 11 who are “at significant risk of serious illness or death” from Covid-19, using the Pfizer/BioNTech jab at the lower dosage.
Pfizer and BioNTech are also trialling their vaccine on infants aged six months to two years, and on children aged two to five.
The topline results for those trials are expected “as soon as” the fourth quarter of this year (2021), the companies said.
All together, up to 4,500 children aged six months to 11 years have enrolled in the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine trials in the US, Finland, Poland and Spain.
Like its Moderna rival, the Pfizer jab is based on novel mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) technology that delivers genetic instructions to cells to build the coronavirus spike protein, in order to evoke antibodies when the recipients encounter the real virus. – AFP
